Team Ireland head to Kosovo for international competition

Darragh Harbinson, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 07/07/2025

The IESF European Esports Championships 2025 begin on July 9th, with Ireland taking their place in a highly contested field of international rosters, with the cores of BIG, Sashi, and TNL being notable attendees, representing their respective nations.

The Ireland roster is made up of the core of the NXT roster, who won UKIC Season 6 Division 1 in June, with NXT’s Tom ‘arTisT’ Clarke, Matas ‘Extinct’ Strumila, and Jamie ‘Tree60’ Callan being joined by Nathan ‘Unicorn’ Dowd, and Analyst/Caster Jack ‘Zerpherr’ Kelly in the playing squad. Jack ‘Jackmon’ O Donnell, winner of multiple Irish LANs as a player, will coach the team.

The Irish roster got through to the international LAN in 3-0 fashion during the online qualifiers, defeating Malta, Albania and a talented Czech roster that featured Adam ‘NEOFRAG’ Zouhar.

Ireland got through to the tournament with the help of former K10 and Raptors EC player, Adam ‘AdamJC’ Colwell, who stood in for Unicorn, aka N8, for their final qualifying match against Kosovo’s geographic neighbour, Albania.

Which teams are attending the IESF European Esports Championships 2025?

Ireland’s core may be the best team in the UK, but the competition boasts some of Counter-Strike’s European elite in the quest for international glory.

First in Ireland’s way will be Denmark, whose roster largely consists of the Sashi organisational roster, that are #51 in the Valve Global Rankings. Featuring former Astralis AWPer, Philip ‘Lucky’ Ewald, the Sashi core missed out on the Perfect World Shanghai Major by only one result.

The host nation, Kosovo, will host national heroes Bad News Eagles, though the roster will miss out on a core part of BNE’s success, rifler Rigon ‘rigoN’ Gashi, with NaVi Junior IGL Aulon ‘Krabeni’ Fazlija taking the fifth spot. The Kosovoan roster took the decision to disband in late June, but are treating the IESF on home soil as the roster’s “Last Dance.”

Four of the five BIG roster are attending. Johannes ‘tabseN’ Wodarz, Karim ‘krimbo’ Moussa, Jon ‘JDC’ de Castro, Can ‘kyuubii’ Ali, and coach Sebastian ‘xenn’ Hoch will all be present in Kosovo, with only Marcel ‘hyped’ Köhn missing and Robin ‘ScrunK’ Röpk taking his place.

Ukraine’s TNL are currently #29 in the Valve Global Rankings, showing LAN form in 2025, having won Level Up LUND in April. Other teams represented include the UNiTY core representing Czechia, Eclot and Sinner players present for Slovakia, and a Lithuania team that includes Monte’s Gytis ‘ryu’ Glušauskas, NaVi Junior’s Džiugas ‘dziugss’ Steponavičius, and former mousesports and Into The Breach player, Aurimas ‘Bymas’ Pipiras

The Netherlands roster also hosts a few familiar faces to UK CS aficionados, with arTisT, Extinct, and Tree60’s teammate Jacob ‘Rezst’ Hemming, as well as former Endpoint mainstay Joey ‘CRUC1AL’ Steusel, and 8Sins’s Antal ‘Cher1on’ Lubbers.

IESF’s CS2 competition begins on Wednesday, July 9th at 12 pm BST, with Ireland facing Denmark amongst the first set of contests.

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Darragh Harbinson, Senior Editor

Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.

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